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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Blog Ring of Power interview with Sue Burke Part V

Sue standing on
the city walls of Buitrago de Lozoya near Madrid.

This week Writer/Translator Sue Burke has been visiting the Blog Ring of Power. She lives in Spain, and so gets to tour castles and knows a lot about medieval times. Here is the final part of our interview with this very interesting lady.

Welcome to the Write Time Sue, I'm so excited to wrap up the interview here on my blog. I am fascinated with translating. I speak Spanish myself, but not good enough to try and tackle any translating of any great literary work!

So lets start off by discussing Your Current Work

Tell us about your new book and when it is out? Where can people
purchase it?

Amadis of Gaul Book I came out at the beginning of this year at
Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

The novel has a long history
behind it. It all started when a bard brought stories of King Arthur and Merlin
to the French court of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1155, and from there the
stories spread across the continent, inspiring many more of tales of chivalry.
In Spain, those stories began to coalesce around the figure of Amadis, who
lived before King Arthur and who was the greatest knight in the world.

These tales became a novel that
continued to grow over the next two centuries. It tells how Amadis is born out
of wedlock to the King of Gaul (an imaginary kingdom) and grows up not knowing
who he is. He falls in love with Princess Oriana of Great Britain, but their
love must remain a secret. He loves her so dearly he would do anything she
asks.

Amadis rescues his father's
kingdom from an attack by the King of Ireland, finds out who he is, and then
goes on to have a series of exciting adventures. And although this supposedly
takes place long ago and far away from medieval Spain, the setting is pure
medieval Spanish: its customs, its beliefs, its geography, and its means of
fighting. I must warn prospective readers about the vivid, bloody fights
between knights -- but if you want to learn about real hand-to-hand combat in
those days, this is the book for you.

Why did you want to translate this book?

The version of Amadis of Gaul published in 1508, after
the printing press was established, became Europe's first best-seller. It was
reprinted 19 times, translated into 7 languages, spawned 44 direct sequels and
100 other works, and fueled the genre of chivalry across the continent. In
1605, Miguel de Cervantes wrote Don
Quixote de la Mancha to satirize these books, and Don Quixote is a lot funnier if you read Amadis first.

But there wasn't a good
translation of Amadis available, even
though this book is key to understanding Western literature and culture. It
even made a mark on history. Jousts were revived because of Amadis, and nobles and princes would
dress up and reenact scenes from the novel or one of its spinoffs. California
was named after a place in a sequel about Amadis's son.

What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write/translate and why?

Chapter XXXV, in which Amadis
rescues Princess Oriana from an evil sorcerer, and on the way back to London,
they stop in a beautiful valley and finally consummate their love. That scene
sings with joy:

"Amadis turned to his lady,
and when he saw her so beautiful and in his possession, having given himself to
his will, he was so struck by joy and shyness that he did not dare even to gaze
at her. So it could well be said that in that green grass, on that cloak, more
by the quiet grace of Oriana than the bold courage of Amadis, did the most
beautiful maiden in the world become a woman."

Did you learn anything from writing/translating this book and what
was it?

The Middle Ages was strange.
People really thought differently. Trial by combat was accepted. A maiden
combing her hair was erotic. Nobles always rode horses rather than walk, and
they might ride their horses right into a throne room to deliver a message to a
king.

They had a different view of the
supernatural, too. This book is a fantasy, with magical weapons, giants,
monsters, and enchanted places. But it's a medieval Christian magical system.
Sorcerers can be God-fearing and even clerics. God often intervenes personally,
or He lets the Roman goddess Fortune, who in the Middle Ages was believed to
serve Him, do her will with those who had angered Him with cruel behavior.

I also don't get all the jokes.
In one interlude, a knight enters a castle by being pulled up over the walls in
a basket. I know it's funny because I've seen references to it as some sort of
sexual joke in other medieval texts, and I know the dialogue in that scene is
full of plays on words, but I don't get them. That detail of history seems to
be lost.

How does the point of view affect the story, and why isn't it used
anymore?

As was common in medieval times,
Amadis of Gaul was read out loud to
an audience. That's because books, being hand-written, were so rare that few
people had learned how to read, but listening to books was popular. In fact, in
the 13th century, King Alfonso X of Castile y León ordered stories of chivalry
to be read to knights during meals to inspire them. You can hear this in the
text, which often says something like, "As I have already told
you...."

Because this book was read to an
audience, it has an omniscient, authoritative narrator. But after the printing
press was invented in the mid-1400s, people began to have access to books, and
reading for pleasure, silently and alone, became more common.

Now authors could write directly
to the reader as if to a close friend, not to a listener simultaneously trying
to attract the attention of the servant with the wine jug. Storytelling became
intimate, and the narrator shifted from authoritative to suggestive. Eventually
the point of view could even become unreliable because readers were following
the story that closely.

Technology drove that change,
and now, with the Internet, technology has just changed again, and readers can
interact with the text and the author. I wonder what that will do to novels.

Since writing is also a business lets talk a little about the business aspects

Tell us about your route to success. Your book is self-published -
how/when did you decide to go this route? Did you query agents or publishers
first? How did you handle the editing, proofreading, cover design, etc.

It was clear that no publisher
was about to take on a project as odd as this one: a translation of an old,
obscure, foreign work. At first I was content to let it remain on the Internet
as a blog, but after I finished Book I, I remembered that some readers had asked
if the work would be available in a more convenient format -- that is, as a
book, because paging through blog posts is a long, slow way to read a novel.

I've worked as an editor
creating and designing publications, so I knew what it would entail. I began to
compile posts into a book and investigate self-publishing options. Though I
have issues with Amazon, I have to admire its ability to sell things. I checked
into its CreateSpace company, which turned out to be fairly easy to use, with
good templates and clear instructions. Editing is hard, exacting work, but
preparing the book ran smoothly since the project was relatively simple, and I
had the skills to do it all myself.

If the words "trim
size" and "binding margin" mean something to you, you can do it,
too. That said, the first proof had lots of errors, from typos (proofread,
proofread, proofread) to design and typography issues, so the process wasn't
foolproof.

But once I had the final
manuscript, turning it into Kindle format was a snap, provided you know how to
create hyperlinks within the manuscript.

Do you belong to any writing communities or associations? If so,
what role, if any, have they played in your success?

I belong to the Madrid Writer's
Critique Group, which has been in existence for about 14 years. It's open to
all kinds of writers who work in English and meets every Tuesday evening.
They've helped me (and I hope I've helped them) with critiques and support. The
group includes members from absolute beginners to accomplished pros, and some
of them gave me excellent advice as I began the Amadis project.

One good piece of advice I
follow: work six weeks ahead so that if you have an emergency in your life, you
can continue to post on schedule.

I also belong to Broad Universe
and the Asociación Española de Fantasía, Ciencia Ficción y Terror, both of
which provide good contacts and support.

Amadis of Gaul Book I

Tell us about your book's cover - where did the design come from and
what was the design process like?

I've been posting the
translation chapter by chapter on a blog since 2009, and each entry includes a
photo that relates to the content in some way. Sometimes I use art from
medieval manuscripts, and sometimes I use photos of locations or artifacts.
Anytime I'm around a castle or anything medieval, I start snapping photos like
mad. (It's a real advantage to be living in Spain.)

When it came time to design the
cover, I found I had a fine photo of a suit of armor at Segovia Castle, and
with a little photoshopping, it became the cover artwork: it expressed the
strength and determination of Amadis, the greatest knight in the world.

I paged through the offerings of
cover styles at Amazon's CreateSpace until I found a design that went with the
photo. If I still had an art department to work with, I would have done things
a little differently -- used a different type face on the cover, for example.
Still, I'm satisfied with the final result.

Any advice to anyone else who wishes to translate a work?

Translations are hard to sell to
the English-speaking market. In the first place, editors often don't have the
money to pay for them. Professional translating groups recommend 10 cents per
word, but "pro" genre magazine rates start at 5 cents per word, which
would have to be split between the author and translator. Few small publishers
can pay $10,000 for the translation of a novel.

Second, no matter how famous a
writer or work is in their native country, English-speakers probably haven't
heard about it, so publishers look at that writer as a "newbie" who will
be hard to sell.

However, works published in
English get great respect and publicity in non-English-speaking countries; the
market is not reciprocal. In 2011, translated books accounted for 22% of all
the books published in Spain, and 47% of those books were translated from
English. Meanwhile, world-wide, only 8% of the books published in English were
translated from other languages.

In medieval times, troubadours and poets recounted tales of
knights-errant. They fought evildoers and magical beings, and each
knight served his lady in accordance with the rules of chivalric love.

Amadis
of Gaul is the most famous tale of chivalry from Spain. The novel,
divided into four books, recounts the life of Amadis, the greatest
knight in the world. This is Book I of the novel.

It became the
Renaissance's best-selling literary phenomena. It went through 19
reprintings, was translated into 7 languages, and spawned 44 direct
sequels, as well as fueling an entire genre, complete with fan fiction.
Jousts were revived with theatrical pageantry, and "knights" came in the
guise of their favorite characters.

This is a new translation. It leaves nothing out, will carry you back in time to enjoy this transcendent, delightful adventure.

It
includes a preface, introduction, notes to chapters, and an appendix
discussing the relationship between Amadis of Gaul and Don Quixote.

Amadis
of Gaul is one of the pillars of European fiction. It opens a window
not only to a wondrous fictional world but to the real medieval world
that produced it.

About the Author

Sue Burke is a writer in Madrid, Spain.

From all of us associated with the Blog Ring of Power, and myself, thank you, Sue, for taking the time to share this fascinating story with us all.

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Speculitive Fiction Member Since 2011

About Me

I've lived from New York to California, Washington to Texas, and several places in between. Love the Rocky Mountains, where I spent over 18 years, and I enjoy the heartland. I currently reside in Mississippi with my wife and two of my five children and two cats. A dog would be most welcome, but my wife is not overly fond of critters, she and the cats tolerate one another.
I write Speculative Fiction, mainly Fantasy, and Science Fiction. My current project is an epic fantasy that has a mind of its own.
I also enjoys photography, camping, reading, good movies, and of course telling fun stories.